3.7m P2P users illegally sharing top TV shows

By Colin Mann

April 29, 2014

Boardwalk Empire

In the week leading up to the Cable Show in Los Angeles, CEG TEK International, a provider of in-depth business intelligence and comprehensive anti-piracy solutions, tracked piracy rates of 175 hit shows on cable, broadcast, and OTT networks in the US. The resultant study – Top TV Show P2P Piracy Report – revealed that in excess of 3.7 million unique peers (users) worldwide illegally shared those TV shows daily using the BitTorrent peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing network.

Among cable networks, HBO saw the most piracy, with 381,952 users worldwide and 38,330 users in the US illegally sharing HBO content daily, followed by AMC with 301,601 worldwide daily and 29,773 in the US, and FX with 138,084 worldwide and 23,516 in the US. Other networks with significant piracy rates include Showtime, History Channel, Comedy Central, Starz, A&E, USA, and BBC America.

Among broadcast networks, CBS led with 619,157 P2P users illegally sharing shows like The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother daily around the world. ABC was next at 573,016 worldwide, followed by CW (373,750), FOX (360,041) and NBC (256,191).

Alternative or OTT networks are also included in the report, with original content such as Netflix’s House of Cards and Orange is the New Black seeing the most illegal activity. Overall, Netflix saw an average of 87,790 users accessing their content illegally on a daily basis worldwide.

“Some network executives have responded to the fact that their shows are being pirated with a lack of real concern, but if they look at the potential revenue they could have made, they might think again,” said Kyle Reed, Co-Founder and COO, CEG TEK. “Even in a conservative estimate – say ten per cent of the 3.7 million illegal P2P shares that we tracked – if those shows were purchased at a flat rate of $2.99 per download, we looking at over $11 million in potential revenue lost daily.”

The top 10 cable networks and their most heavily pirated shows are as follows: